What’s the Point in TikTok Ban If Trump Won’t Enforce It?
Plus: MAGA grifters just lost out on a big foreign influence deal.
Tick tock, TikTok
According to the law, either TikTok should be banned from U.S. devices right now, or its parent company, ByteDance, should have sold the social media application. Neither has happened, but if you open the app right now, you can still watch families in enormous houses participate in dance crazes to your heart’s content.
The TikTok ban passed both chambers of Congress, and then-President Joe Biden signed it into law last year, with widespread consensus that ByteDance’s ties to the Chinese government posed a national security threat. The Supreme Court upheld the ban in January 2025, and the app briefly went dark following the decision.
But TikTok came back online after then–President elect Trump posted to Truth Social that he would halt enforcement. After he was sworn in, the president, outwardly explaining that he wanted to maintain inroads with younger voters, made good on his promise through an executive order that extended the parameters of the law to give more time for a “deal” to be made.1 Just like that, the plastic crate challenges and supercuts of guys trying to toss cups into other cups were back online. But Trump hadn’t saved TikTok indefinitely. He had given negotiations an extension. And when that extension expired last weekend, Trump decided to just create another extension entirely. It’s unclear what authority he had to do so.
The administration has let it be known that they aren’t extending the deadline for no reason. A sale of the app is near. The New York Times reported that the White House had developed the draft of a deal and gotten initial buy-in from China, and the Trump team had started circulating a draft executive order laying out the deal last Thursday. But then Trump brought out the chaotic tariff boards, and China put the TikTok/ByteDance deal on ice in response to the new duties on Chinese goods.
Trump’s reasons2 for allowing TikTok to remain operational notwithstanding, the extension raises one obvious question: Do lawmakers actually care about the bill they passed? So far they seem less concerned about their laws being enforced than they are about some kind of “deal” that may or may not come at an undetermined date.
In speaking with senators in the Capitol on Monday, the overarching theme was that the law most of them voted for doesn’t need to be followed—so long as some kind of deal is eventually made that results in the Chinese Communist Party no longer controlling TikTok.
“The goal is to divest [TikTok from the] Chinese company, which is in essence the Chinese Communist Party, so if it takes a few more days to get that done, I think we can all be patient,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who voted for the ban. “Obviously, it needs to get done sooner rather than later.”
Asked if it’s a problem that the law isn’t being enforced, Cornyn shrugged. “Well the executive branch is the one who enforces the law, so I’m focused on the result more than anything else,” he said.
“[The White House] probably has to get time to get a deal struck,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), another supporter of the legislation. “Hopefully they’re getting close.”
“Yeah, I wanna see it get done as soon as possible,” Daines added when I pointed out that the window for a deal expired.
Oddly enough, it was a senator who didn’t vote for the TikTok ban who stressed that Trump should comply with the law requiring it. “I think they have got to comply with the law,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).
Some Democrats have gone public in charging the Trump administration with acting illegally by implementing the latest extension. But others, perhaps wary of offending those youth voters who drifted towards Trump, stopped short.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told me, “I think it’s time for some transparency on TikTok—T.O.T.—transparency on TikTok.” He wouldn’t elaborate further, but he did repeat the point: “Right now there needs to be some transparency.”
As I’ve noted many times before, members of Congress often take the same indifferent view each time the president decides to ignore their will, even though he’s doing so with increasing frequency. The law requiring TikTok be sold or face a national ban simply provides Republican lawmakers with one more occasion for quietism.
The golden age of foreign influence grifting
In last Thursday’s edition, I noted a new Foreign Agents Registration Act filing featuring disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who inked a deal to advocate before the government on behalf of a Bosnian fugitive and associate of Vladimir Putin. Well, today we have another FARA filing full of familiar far-right faces.
Milo Yiannopoulos, the right-wing commentator, joined a convicted January 6th participant and a few other associates to sign a lucrative deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on whose behalf the group will “advocate . . . before the U.S. Congress, Executive Branch and other government agencies, provide strategic communications and public affairs support and provide policy research and analysis related to security issues.”
The filing shows a $5 million take for their group, Earhart Turner LLC, with $1 million earmarked specifically for Yiannopoulos. The other registrants include Karen Giorno, Hassan Sheikh, and Nicholas Ochs. Giorno worked for the Trump campaign, while Ochs allegedly threw a smoke grenade at police during the January 6th attack on the Capitol. (He pleaded guilty to obstructing a federal proceeding and spent time in prison before his conviction was overturned last fall. He was among those who received pardons from Trump earlier this year.)
But there’s a wrinkle in this seven-figure deal to presumably advance the Congolese mission in the United States. A spokesperson for the DRC announced the termination of the contract shortly after it got a splash in Politico’s Influence newsletter. According to the government’s statement:
In light of the mutually-expressed will to relaunch strategic partnerships between our two governments, the DRC’s approach will be to give priority to direct exchanges with the new Administration via official and authorized channels.
Consequently, the President hereby suspends, immediately and until further notice, all contracts, approaches or proposals made between the DRC and any American lobbying firms or entities, notably Earhart Turner LLC.
It’s not clear why the DRC is canceling its contracts in this way or why Earhart Turner was specifically called out in its press release, but the announcement came a few days after Trump slapped a 10 percent tariff on the DRC as part of his freewheeling new trade initiative that’s cratering the stock market.
Neither Giorno nor Yiannopoulus responded to requests for comment.
FlouRida
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that he will instruct the Centers for Disease Control to no longer recommend fluoridation for public drinking water, according to the Associated Press.
The move has been expected for some time, as theories about the supposed dangers of fluoridated water have long held the attention of Kennedy and his “do your own research” followers. Not long after Trump won his election in 2024 and picked Kennedy to lead HHS, I reported that many of the dentists elected to Congress—all of whom are Republicans—were uneasy at the idea that Kennedy might purge fluoride from public water.
“It would be good for the dental profession,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said in November. “A lot more cavities to fill.”
This afternoon, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chairs the Senate committee that oversees HHS and the CDC—and who gave Kennedy the cover he needed for confirmation—addressed the anti-fluoridation initiative: “The American Dental Association strongly stresses that fluoride prevents cavities and I trust the American Dental Association.”
For what it’s worth, Washingtonian reported Monday that Kennedy purchased a $4.43 million home in D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood. Fluoridated water will come out of those taps, for now.
But maybe not for long. Maybe it’s time to lay off the Mountain Dew.
The “law” is basically what the president says it is these days.
Keeping TikTok around offers obvious political advantages beyond partially explaining Trump’s gains with younger voters in the 2024 election. Trump also cozied up to wealthy individuals with clear financial stake in the company. As is always the case with Trump, this appears to be a transactional move.
It is essential to understand one thing, an over-arching fact of current life in these United States that transcends all other considerations: there is, now, only one branch of government, the Executive Branch, under the control of a deranged leader.
The Congress and the Judiciary are now subservient: a supine Congress unwilling or unable to exercise its Constitutional duties and prerogatives, and a Judiciary, headed by the 'Supreme' Court, that has handed to the Executive free rein to do exactly as it wishes.
End of subject. So sorry.
Although I don't comment a lot here, just want to comment now to say this is (one of) the best reporting about Congress anywhere. There are outlets that report more frequently, but most do not get to the gist of the subject as well as Joe. Thanks